Story submitted by Eric Worrall.
The BBC, the UK Government Broadcaster, has banned former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson from appearing on BBC programmes to talk about climate change.
According to a spokesman for the BBC, a series of complaints about an interview in which Lord Lawson expressed climate skepticism, led to a ruling in favour of the complainants by the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Board.
“This ruling found a false balance was created in that the item implied Lord Lawson’s views on climate science were on the same footing as those of Sir Brian Hoskins.”
However, this is not the first time the BBC has gagged unfashionable views.
Sir Winston Churchill, the WW2 leader of Britain, openly expressed the opinion that his views on NAZI Germany were gagged by the BBC, because his concerns about Germany were not what the BBC wanted the British people to hear.
History suggests the tactic will backfire:
According to the article on Churchill’s “gagging” by the BBC;
“There is no written evidence that Churchill asked the BBC for the opportunity to speak out against appeasement. However, he did complain to a young BBC producer who visited him on the day after Chamberlain returned home from Munich. A memo records their meeting. They spent hours discussing the Nazi threat and “Churchill complained that he had been very badly treated… and that he was always muzzled by the BBC”.
The BBC producer who tried to reassure Churchill about BBC bias was Guy Burgess. Burgess was the man who would later become Britain’s most infamous traitor, when he defected to Moscow with fellow spy Donald Maclean.
Story Title: BBC Bans Lord Lawson for Climate Skepticism
One line summary of story: A previous gagging led to disaster
h/t to Jo Nova
Wow. And I don’t use that word frivolously.
Eric/Anthony: The h/t could arguably have been given to one Richard Drake on Bishop Hill on 22nd October 2012. But I’d only read the Telegraph article because of someone else on a blog – perhaps not a climate blog – having pointed to it and couldn’t remember who so fair enough. It stuck in the mind though, as you can tell. 🙂
Wow, indeed.
The BBC is out of control as are most Anglosphere media outlets.
What did Goldfinger say about coincidence, happenstance and enemy action?
There is no pause in how they resist the existence of the “pause.”
There was a pol in the UK Daily Express about the licence fee on Monday. I voted to cancel the payments. If I want world news I now watch China TV on a satellite channel.
The BBC has a pretty poor record on ‘balance’ and has always had a ‘left-leaning’ bias. Churchill didn’t trust them, even in wartime when they were eager to co-operate with him, possibly a result of his political nous. Only a year or so ago, they were exposed as having made a decision to exclude all ‘deniers’ and all ‘unhelpful’ science reporting after a ‘seminar’ in which only one speaker was a ‘scietist’ in the sphere of ‘climate’ and the rest were PR and Advocacy people from Greenpeace, etc. Their reporting on anything ‘political’ is always biased.
I don’t think this is accurate as reported here and at JoNova’s.
There is no “ban” on Lawson. However, what may be more important is that this is about the so called “false balance”. It seems to be that that is declared to “not happen again”.
So this is much broader than Lawson. It is an attempt deny air time to anything sceptical of climate change.
And of course the whole idea of “false balance” is based on the FAKE studies claiming 97% agree on something so general and uncontentious that Lawson would probably also agree on it .
all MSM need to understand how little credibility they have with the general public these days:
9 July: Rasmussen: Only 20% Think Debate About Global Warming Is Over
Voters strongly believe the debate about global warming is not over yet and reject the decision by some news organizations to ban comments from those who deny that global warming is a problem.
Only 20% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the scientific debate about global warming is over, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Sixty-three percent (63%) disagree and say the debate about global warming is not over. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)…
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/july_2014/only_20_think_debate_about_global_warming_is_over
“Fair and balanced”. Yeah, right. The problem is that my british friends all seem to take what’s on the beeb for absolute truth. Just the normal propaganda if you ask me though.
Re Dan’s comment
“What did Goldfinger say about coincidence, happenstance and enemy action?”
I don’t think Goldfinger said anything like that. If he did, he was quoting Simon Templar – aka “The Saint” – of great and glorious memory.
Anyone remember wondering how the populations of the old “Communist Block” could possibly swallow the unrelenting stream of propaganda that spewed from their various institutions including news outlets? It would appear that “they” have become “us”. Yet another example of the ends justifying the means when those who think themselves “good” do battle with “evil”.
What marks this as absolute fascism, among other things, is the total dishonesty behind it.
Hardly a single news article about an environmental issue is aired by the BBC without an activist from Greenpeace or another extreme-warmist NGO being consulted – first and sometimes exclusively – when 99% of the time the arrogant loud-mouthed talking head has zero qualifications other than having been taught to speak by their mother – or by the TV (a large percent of the British population fall into this category). And now we are told that Nigel Lawson – with about as much scholarship as all of Greenpeace put together – is “not qualified” to give an equivalent opinion?
I am British (though not living in Britain) and over the last few years have been driven to the painful conclusion that Britain is no longer a force for good in the world that it once was – for instance in the time of Winston Churchill. Due to the craven submission of our ruling elite to the AGW global power-grab, we are now in the front rank of the world’s fascist regimes. We are now one of the bad guys.
If there is a future D-day for freedom and democracy it will land on our shores.
According to a spokesman for the BBC, a series of complaints about an interview in which Lord Lawson expressed climate skepticism, led to a ruling in favour of the complainants by the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Board.
There are many ways of expressing climate skepticism. There are the sky dragons, for example. Therefore, without watching the interview, I would prefer not to say a thing regarding whether the complainants were right or wrong.
Throughout history, intelligent people understood that enlightenment can only be obtained when freedom of thought and speech are sacrosanct.
BBC’s censorship of CAGW skeptics is not to protect the truth, but rather to hide their ignorance and protect their various political and social agendas.
The CAGW scam is in its death throes, and the only way to keep it alive is to limit skeptics’ freedom of thought and speech that dare expose and question its conclusions.
However, the more CAGW advocates try to suppress free speech, the more desperate they appear and the less plausible the CAGW hypothesis becomes.
I’m actually encouraged to see the BBC’s feeble attempts to shutdown the CAGW debate, because it only shows their anxiety is increasing and that the CAGW hypothesis is not the “settled science” they claim it to be.
The writer Chistopher Hitchens said it best, “My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.”
“[A politician] complained that he had been very badly treated… and that he was always muzzled by the BBC”
Now there’s a first!
For our foreign friends who are unaware of how the BBC is funded:
It broadcasts no paid advertising. Instead every household has to pay a Licence Fee of £145.50 every year, for the privilege of being able to watch broadcast TV. ie any live TV. Even if you watch no BBC, only it’s competitors. UK viewers have no choice in who they pay for their preferred flavour of propaganda.
It’s known colloquially as the “Telly Tax”
OK, now after finding and reading the transcript of the interview (a link should be provided in the article, IMO), it is absolutely clear to me that this decision by the BBC is ridiculous and will backfire.
The trasnscript:
http://www.thegwpf.org/Hoskins-vs-lawson-the-climate-debate-the-bbc-wants-to-censor/
The Bolshevik Broadcasting Cooperative really is a disgrace in a modern democracy and should be shut down, or the license fee to fund it, made voluntary, which would be much the same thing.
I think a FOI request may be needed to find out how many complaints, then skeptics can use the same ‘complaint’ tactic. Further FOI’s can be made to determine the level of complaint to see if there is any bias .. anyone game ?
Looks like the panic is starting to set it.
Why is it, when alarmists start hand-wringing over the GWPF that they seem to pathologically ignore the “POLICY” in the GWPF’s name?
If this approach were to be consistently applied at the BBC then no one could be given airtime on on any matters of policy where they are either not formally qualified in the closest appropriate scientific discipline or hold some kind of alternative/minority view separate from their views on policy.
From an article commenting on this ban. – “So, overall, I agree. Given that how, if at all, we should respond to climate change is a matter of economics and political judgement, not (emphatically not) atmospheric physics (for nothing whatever follows from any climate change model about what policy should be adopted in response to its findings), I entirely agree that when Lord Lawson debates climate change policy with climate scientists there is only one person there with relevant expertise and the other party is, at best, a semi-informed amateur. The relevant expert is Lord Lawson.” – read it all here – http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/andrewlilico/100027585/lord-lawson-the-climate-and-the-bbc-whos-the-real-expert/?fb
Village Idiot says:
July 9, 2014 at 11:17 pm
Did you read the article, idiot?
From the Telegraph article: “The [BBC] spokesman said: “Nigel Lawson has not been banned and nor is there a ban on non-scientists discussing climate change.”
There is not official ban on Lawson, neither is there a mechanism by which the BBC issues “gagging orders”. It would be better to stick to the facts.
There is definitely bias at the BBC and an organised attempt to exclude sceptic views, as was revealed by their secret meeting of their editors, NGOs and the US ambassador.
From the Telegraph article: “Lord Lawson wrote that Fraser Steel, head of the unit, apologised to Mr Chong “for the fact I was allowed to appear on the programme and to make clear this will not happen again”.
None of what I’ve read so far is based on either a written record of a complaint or a document of any decision. Most of this storey is a bunch of hearsay that this getting bigger and better at each retelling.
Daily Mail , The Telegraph, JoNova, now WUWT. More like a game of chinese whispers.
BTW it seems they misspelt the name of the original complainant. The “low-energy expert ” sounds like some stoner who gave his name as Cheech Chong.
He’s probably getting paid carbon credits for growing ‘bud’ in the basement, fertilised by CO2 sequestration.